Athens, National Archaeological Museum

Q637187

That was not very clever: visiting the National Archaeological Museum on the last day of a two week trip through northern and central Greece. Of course, it was a nice summary of everything we’ve seen, but I think it would have been better to start over here. Ever a teacher, I might have used the museum’s splendid collection of sculpture to explain to my companions the development of Greek art.

That’s what you’ll find on the first floor: lots of sculpture in a series of rooms surrounding a large hall, which is devoted to Mycenaean art. There, you will find the golden objects from Mycenae that Schliemann found. The sculpture rooms surround it. Your tour starts with some kouroi and you can easily follow the growth to greater accuracy in representing the human body. When you’ve finished about a third of your tour, the Greek sculptors have mastered every aspect of anatomy, and you will pass along many classical sculptures, including two dazzling copies of the Diadumenus and the Cnidian Aphrodite. After that, more sculpture: the fourth century, Hellenism, and finally the Roman age.

On the ground floor, there’s also a series of rooms that contain metal art. Here, you will see the Anticythera Mechanism, but also collections of arrowheads from Marathon and Thermopylae. The Egyptian part – also on the ground floor – is a bit odd in a museum dedicated to Greek art, but the collection is too small to be exposed in a museum of its own and too important to keep stored away. In the Hellenistic part of the Egyptian collection, I noticed a statue of Hephaestion that I had never seen before.

Upstairs, you will find a marvelous collection of pottery and some objects that don’t fit anywhere else, like the Lemnian inscription, written in a language related to Etruscan. Next to it is a section dedicated to the investigations at Santorini, where some splendid frescoes have been found.

Do not forget to visit the basement. There’s a little café with a garden, where you will see some of the sculptures found in the Anticythera wreck. They have a certain beauty because they are partly eroded. I found the giant Heracles absolutely fascinating.

This museum was visited in 1989, 1992, 2004, 2007, 2010.

76 pictures related to this museum

Aegina, Tombstone of a young man, holding a bird	Megara, Statue of a Roman emperor (Trajan or Hadrian)	Mycene, Dagger with lion hunt	Athens, Agora, Late Geometric pyxis
Piraeus, Votive stela of a reclining Dionysus	Athens, Kerameikos, Skull of Myrthis	Mycene, Wall painting ("La Parisienne")	Eleusis, Relief of a drunk Heracles
Zeus and Ganymedes	Athens, Kerameikos, Siren	Mycene, House of the Warrior Krater, Warrior Krater	Piraeus, Julian the Apostate
Nysa, Bouleuterion, "Little Refugee"	Larisa, Tombstone of a man with a hat	Megiste, Bellerophon sarcophagus.	Thebes, Tombstone
Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Head of Hera	Eleusis, Temple F, Cecrops and Herse	Piraeus, Funerary stela with ball players	Argos, Heraion, Sima
Athens, Stoa of Attalus, Attalus II Philadelphus	Mycene, Wall painting of a griffin with a warrior	Alexandria, Alexander the Great (part of a group with Hephaestion)	Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of boxers
Eretria, Gymnasium, Statue of Cleonicus	Argos, Theater, Statue of Aphrodite	Lemnos, Tombstone of an Etruscan (?) warrior	Piraeus, Theater, Head of Dionysus (classicizing)
Piraeus, Funerary stela of Damasistrate	Lebadeia, Relief of Trophonius	Hellenistic ruler	Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Palladion
Decree of Tefnakht	Epidauros, Temple of Artemis, Nike	Eleusis, Tombstone of a warrior	Alexandria, Hephaestion (part of a group with Alexander)
Sais, Temple of Neith, Statuette	Lead figurine of Athena	Gomphoi, Relief of Odysseus and Amphicleia	Athens, Kerameikos, Dipylon krater
Argos, Relief of the Doryphorus of Polykleitos	Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of antelopes	Thebes (?), Block statue of Prince Horwedja, governor and high priest in Heliopolis	Sparta, Statue of Julia Aquilia Severa, damaged after her death
Athens, Varvakeion Athena	Piraeus, Head of a bearded god	Marathon, Arrowheads	Argos, Heraion, Amazonomachy
Athens, Pnyx, Lenormant Athena	Pharsalus, Krater with a four-horse chariot	Lycian portrait of Omphale	Eucratides II of Bactria
Chalcis-Vromousa, Head of a woman (Roman copy of a Greek original)	Athens, Kerameikos, Alexander with a Lion's Pelt	Corinth, Relief of a hoplite	Thebes, Head of Artemis
Megara, Statue of Dionysus	Larisa, Tombstone of Polyxena	Melos, Statue of Poseidon	Athens, Temple of Zeus, Portrait of Polemo of Laodicea
Athens, Kerameikos, Base of the statue of a wrestler	Eleusis, Relief of Demeter, Triptolemus, and Kore	Thermopylae, Arrowheads	Aegina, Temple of Apollo, Statue of a wounded warrior
Dodona, Figurine of Zeus Keraunos	Mycene, Boar's tusk helmet	The fight for the body of Patroclus.	Athens, Statue of a Minotaur
Artemisium, Statue of Zeus	Aegina, Ptolemy VI Philometor	Piraeus, Statue of a woman or Demeter	Corinth, Plate with Demeter
Smyrna, Portrait of Caligula, reworked to resemble Titus	Eretria, Lekythos (Bosanquet Painter)	Oropos, Aeolian-Ionic capital	Olympia, Head of the boxer Satyros